Demand for qualified seafarers fast increasing across the world
CHENNAI: India is world’s third largest supplier of seafarers, said Captain Alasdair John Smith, Managing Director, Sea Team Management Private ltd, Singapore, at the seventh convocation of Academy of Maritime Education and Training (AMET) University on Friday.
He said the international chamber of shipping has said there will be a shortage of 150,000 officers by 2025 based on the current growth estimates. “The world increasingly needs ships and ships need growing numbers of qualified and competent seafarers to operate,” he said adding that 85pc of all commodities are transported by sea. This will not change in the foreseeable future. In 2001, the world container fleet was five million twenty foot equivalent unit. In 2007, it doubled to 10 million TEU. By 2016 it doubled to exceed 20 million TEU.
Vice Chancellor G Thiruvasagam said AMET was started in 1993 with just 14 cadets and now it has over 4,000 candidates from India and abroad catering to the needs and dissemination of knowledge in the field of maritime education. The university has been inspected as per the comprehensive inspection programme guidelines of the Directorate-general of shipping by DNV-GL, the approved registered organisation and has been awarded Grade A1 (outstanding), he said. For three consecutive years, the university has achieved Grade A1.
As a result, it was rewarded with 25 per cent additional intake. “The university is also pursuing research activities by focusing on patents, books, publications and research projects. It has filed 30 patents out of which 20 were published in July this year.” A total of 640 students were awarded bachelors, post graduate and doctoral degrees by the founder chancellor J Ramachandran during the convocation.